Striking doctors may lose their jobs

Maputo, 2 Aug (AIM) – The Mozambican government was warned that it may hire at least 60 new doctors for the National Health Service to fill the gap left by those doctors who have obeyed the strike call made by the Mozambican Medical Association (AMM).

The government spokesperson, Deputy Justice Minister Filimao Suaze, gave the warning at a press briefing on Tuesday after the weekly meeting of the Council of Minsters (Cabinet).

Suaze said that the hiring of these doctors is already under way. He added that they are all Mozambicans, are fully trained, and are members of the professional body, the Order of Doctors. Membership of the Order is a legal requirement for anyone practicing medicine in Mozambique.

Suaze’s announcement came after Friday’s decision by the AMM to extend the current strike by a further 21 days. The strikers are protesting at “irregularities” in the way doctors are treated under the Unified Wage Table (TSU) for the public administration introduced last year.

The strike began on 10 July, and was extended after the government refused to meet the strikers’ demands over seniority allowances and overtime pay.

Suaze added that continuing the strike might cost the striking doctors their jobs. They would have to choose between keeping their jobs in the public health service, or leaving public employment “so that the provisional hiring of new doctors that is now happening becomes the definitive hiring of many Mozambican doctors who will play their part in solving the problems Mozambicans are facing because of the strike”.

Suaze also claimed that all but one of the points in dispute between the government and the strikers have been solved. The remaining point is the payment of overtime worked prior to 2020. Even this, he said, was now “80 per cent solved”.

However, new problems have now arisen that were not in the AMM’s initial list of demands. To the AMM’s anger, the government is now determined to eliminate allowances paid to doctors, and inherited from the days prior to the TSU. This would bring doctors’ allowances into line with those paid to other professionals in the public service.

The AMM wants the benefits of the TSU in terms of the greatly increased basic wage, but while keeping the old system of allowances.

The seniority allowance is currently paid when a doctor has completed three, seven, 12 and 18 years of work. This is much more favourable than the seniority allowances paid in other sectors of the public administration, which take effect only after 24 and 30 years of work.

As for overtime, the current situation allows overtime pay to amount to over a third of the basic wage, thus encouraging doctors to work extremely long hours.

The government wants the maximum overtime pay, in all sectors of the public administration, to be no more than one sixth of the basic monthly wage.
(AIM)
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